“We need baseball umpires, because we have a lot of baseball,” said Mid-American Umpires Recruiting Coordinator Dan Murphy.
A lot of things need to be in place — this year especially — for baseball to be played in southwest Missouri. Umpires are one of them.
“Let’s put it in perspective, you’ve got junior high, freshman, junior varsity and varsity. How many high schools do that? Well, we’ve got 68 high schools doing that. You’ve got a need for probably about 125 officials on a Tuesday night,” Murphy said.
Right now, Dan Murphy says they only have 89 trained varsity umpires for the spring.
“Some games might have to be called by one umpire. I’ve done it. I’ve done a varsity Parkview game several years ago as one umpire, and it’s not fun,” Murphy said.
The pandemic has obviously hurt numbers, but Dan says the time commitment also turns people away. On the positive side though, time is money, and the umpires get paid well.
“We get $75 for a seven-inning game. A five-inning game is $65, so you could make $140 a night, minimum,” said Murphy.
Applying is easy, you can do it from the MSHSAA website, click on the officials tab at the top of the page, and just fill it out from there. Or, you can contact Dan Murphy directly at murphyd7@sbcglobal.net or by phone at 417-849-7367.
